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How Can Your Head Be Older Than Your Feet?

November 25, 2015

Written byCuriosity Staff

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Scientists have observed gravitational time dilation by using amazingly accurate atomic clocks. In 2010, they concluded that time does indeed move slower for objects that are nearer to Earth's gravitational field, and that even something that's a mere 33 centimeters above another item will "age" faster. At that scale, the difference is quite small, about 90 billionths of a second for every 79 years. So, humans won't truly detect the difference in age between their heads and their feet.